The sixteen-story Park Lane was Riverside’s first high-rise building and caused quite a stir when it was built in 1926. It towered over Memorial Park and was completely out of scale with the stately residences around it. For many years the Park Lane was Jacksonville’s third-tallest building. It was originally built as co-op apartments, a novel idea in those days, which the developer Francis Mason brought back from a trip to New York. The Park Lane was the forerunner of Florida’s high-rise condominiums. It was also the first tall building in Jacksonville to use “setback” construction, permitting the apartments in the upper stories to have open terraces and sun parlors. The Mediterranean Revival-influenced building was constructed on a narrow tract of land, which was formerly the front yard of a two-story riverfront residence. Consequently, the building is very thin, and many apartments have windows facing on both the north and south sides of the building. The Park Lane cost about $800,000 to build, and the original units sold for $12,000 and up.
